Forget Me Nots
by Jayne Dough
Summary: When Ginny wakes up with someone she shouldn't be with, Hermione takes a turn for the worse. There is one thing that might work, but it's extremely risky. Mild Femmeslash. Rubbish Summary. Reviews would be nice.
1. Chapter 1

Forget-Me-Nots

Ginny pondered for a moment about waking. She knew what she had done. Her eyes closed tightly shutting out the sun from a bright Sunday morning. The smell wasn't Hermione's she knew that straight away the distinct tang of a man's aftershave; and the arms were square, angular, furry, and she didn't slot into them like she did Hermione's she was very much a jigsaw piece with no hollows or juts, forced into a space into which she does not fit.

She didn't want to look, but she knew who it was. She could sense it was going to happen, but unfortunately her will power had died along with copious amounts of alcohol, some kind words and a warm bed. The more she thought about it the more she realised it was easy to cheat on someone. Even someone you know only in transcendent love that had no beginning and until the day you find yourself making the mistake of waking up in someone's arms had no foreseeable end.

"Morning" The gruff male voice uttered. Ginny flinched, it didn't sound right, his rough, broad touch did not feel right. To Ginny's absolute horror she was naked, though by the way the linen hung on her skin she already knew. This cemented in her mind what she didn't want to think about. What she had done. People rarely wake up in their exes bed, naked without some sort of sexual activity somewhere in the timeline of events of the night before.

"Morning" she said curtly, looking around in blind panic like a cornered mouse, searching for means of escape as though his dorm was impenetrable fortress, and not just a teenage boys room. Her mind began to work at lightning pace, thinking of excuses, what to tell Harry to get her out of their without questioning, What to tell Hermione about why she wasn't in the prefects dorm last night. Truth or Lies, a simple enough question in theory though at the minute it was blinding her with it's ambiguity. She had already decided fast enough that she was to tell the truth to Hermione she didn't want to be a liar and a cheater on the same day. But how much of the truth should be given? It's a strangely potent medicine if e'er there was one, and too much had consequences. 'I stayed in Harry's dorm because I was drunk' – Not a lie, but not a whole truth. Ginny was good at the boundaries in truth and lies, she worked well on perfecting it with the twins around, it's a shame she couldn't take it as a subject, or she'd be a star pupil without a doubt.

"Harry, I've got to go" She sighed. Wrapping the white sheet around her, hiding what little of her modesty wasn't on display to anyone with eyes.

"You don't _have _to" Harry stressed, but Ginny was tired, and couldn't take anymore emotional baggage as she was already the emotional atlas, a weight so heavy on her shoulders it was tantamount to a whole globe of emotions.

"Yes, Harry. I do" She said, putting on her school shirt, it hung loosely at her sides unbuttoned, making her look boyish, apart from the obvious curves of her womanhood hidden by a ghostly white sheet.

"Oh" was all Harry could muster at that point. Ginny reached for one of Harry's cigarettes and lit it. "Gin, you don't smoke" He insisted.

"Then what do you think I'm doing." She said, sparking the lighter and letting a contradictory cigarette hang both limp and rigid in her lips. Letting the smoke bellow out in a thick, belching, grey cloud with a soft woosh and a gasp.

"You're very good at that" Harry smiled, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Shut up Harry" she snapped, slamming his lighter down lightning fast on his bed side table, and gushing a sharp intake of breath on the victimised cigarette. "I need to think" She looked around frantically as though chasing a fly, and paused every few seconds to express her stress at the situation by making a deep and hissing sigh. Harry paused for a moment, observing the rare creature in front of him, as though she was some kind of rare species. Harry had never seen her with such intensity before, and it baffled him; he wanted to simultaneously let her go and chase her over an everlasting field, and pin her wings down in a glass case, he couldn't decide which would be preferable.

"Are you going to tell her?" He pondered, leaning over to collect a cigarette for himself, all the while brushing Ginny's skin; She recoiled as though he had all the softness of a brillo pad, and gave him a stone faced glare.

"I, think maybe, no? How should I know! Yeah, I should, yes, yeah I will" She said in-between two inhalations on her rapidly shortening cigarette. She was rubbing her temples, and inside her mind a film reel of every moment with Harry and Hermione separately blurred together at a much faster rate than twenty-four frames a second. Ginny lay back on the huge pillows that had been plumped from two heavy heads resting on them the night before, and let out a sigh. A door creaked, but it was too far away in either of their consciousness' to be noticed. But the figure in the door way was recognisable, the bushy hair, haphazardly scraped into pseudo-tidiness, those eyes and the pale skin.

"Hermione" Harry spluttered. The cigarette almost dropping from his mouth, but caught just in time to stop a blaze, that would probably have been preferable to the situation they found themselves in at that present moment in time. Hermione stared for a moment, Ginny wearing nothing but a shirt, both of them enjoying a relaxing cigarette, and before Harry realised it, Hermione had spotted him unconsciously draping his arm around her. They all waited for the explosion to come; as everyone knew Hermione was reserved but she was so passionate when the moment suited her, they were both sure they'd be dead within the minute. However, the minute passed, and nothing; she was just staring blankly as though she'd walked in on a squirrel eating and didn't want to disturb it. Harry and Ginny exchanged glances, Harry stared and Ginny nodded; She would speak first.

"Hermione…" She began, but Hermione just raised her hand, her eyes unmoving from the tiny spot of fluff on Harry's bedroom rug.

"I just wanted to know where you were" she said in a tiny, hollow, nasal voice that was so unrecognisable Ginny watched her lips move to check that it was indeed her who had said it. She caught her eyes for a moment, then Hermione looked away. "I'll come back later" and she slid out of the door silently, not a hint of an explosion or uncontrollable rage within her at all, just emptiness.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione stood outside the door for a second not knowing what to do, or say, or think. Ginny was perfectly that Hermione was stood in stasis on the other side of a piece of oak for a door, as Hermione's feet were casting tiny shadows under the door into Harry's dorm.

Silently, Hermione became a spectre. A pain formed on her crown, It was sudden and blinding, then it cracked, and gave way to a cold oozing sensation that trickled down from the tip of her head to her toes, leaving her feeling as though every cell in her body was being evacuated as soon as the sensation hit. It was as though an egg had cracked on her head and all the life and yolk had drained her. Conversation became little more than a buzz, and though people tried to talk to her, she looked at them as though she was deaf; as (for all she could understand in this current state) she may has well have been. Her stomach churned, and she was trapped in a continuing state of nausea, that made her feel sea-sick despite remaining stationary. After spending most of the day aimlessly wandering corridors subconsciously seeking hideaways in her dressing gown, she returned to her room with a cup of tea and set up her Scrabble board. Glaring at the accusing squares and numbers.

Though she felt deaf, and sick, and hollow, she wasn't actually feeling anything at all, she had lost all ability to do anything. She followed the rules and beat herself at Scrabble, finished her tea and sat. She then just lay on the floor, on the floorboards; Not somewhere comfy, just wherever she happened to fall. Fully conscious, her mind vacuous and her gaze fixed to the ceiling. It was as though her body had come across a list of options of what to do next and could come up with only one suitable option. So she lay. For hours. People knocked but they were ignored, and through the floor boards she could hear the continuous murmur and buzz of conversation that now appeared foreign to her. A creak sounded, and someone came in.

"Are you ok?" the voice asked. Ginny; Hermione noted.

"I'm fine" Hermione said from the floor, her eyes not meeting Ginny's still.

"May I come in?" Ginny asked, horrified that less than twenty-four hours ago, they had been so close to each other, inside each other, around each other, and now the formalities were deadening. Making Ginny feel like a stranger in the place she'd felt like she most belonged.

"If you want" Hermione stated. No intonation in her voice of any emotion. Ginny walked in, creaking on a floorboard she knew by rote to avoid, but absent mindedness led her stand on it anyway, as it stabbed at the silence, showing how distant they really had become. Ginny glanced at the completed Scrabble board, the horizontal tiles of "Ginny", connecting with a vertical "Harry" at the Y. The N in the "Ginny" a hurtful link to "Infidelity", the R in "Harry" becoming the crux of "Cheater", and the Scrabble board read like a mosaic suicide note of their relationship.

"I'm sorry" Ginny said, quietly, making ripples on the gentle surface of silence. "I don't know why I did it. But we can't do this anymore" Ginny sighed. Hermione moved to look in Ginny's direction, though still afraid to look in her eyes to see the emotion she so desperately never wanted to see. "I'd love to be with you forever" she started.

"But?" Hermione added.

"But" She sighed, "This is unfair on you." She groaned at the triteness of her words, and the ever perpetual clichés that spouted from her mouth. "I can't trust myself, I know I've done it before, and I can't ever let it happen again." She rolled her eyes at her own repetitive voice. "We can't be together anymore".

"Why not?" Hermione replied, sitting up at a right angle and turning even more in Ginny's direction. "I don't mind, I love you Ginny" Hermione said, her bottom lip swelling with melancholy and threatening to burst with pure sadness as it quivered.

"Because it's no way for you to live. You need to respect yourself more than that. You know that. Don't waste your time on me" She held Hermione's angular frame, which now felt as alien as Harry's, sealed the words with a chaste kiss on her forehead, like an unbreakable lock. She left without saying another word, to leave Hermione by herself with nothing but the metallic taste of fresh grief for company.

Hermione stopped Ginny, calling after her.

"So," she paused, tears beginning to flow in unstoppable torrents, "Are you going to be with him now?" She said in a barely audible whimper. Ginny turned to face her and they finally met each other in the eyes, Ginny's eyes filled up too.

"I don't know" She said, as she silently closed the door, and silently nailed the coffin shut on their relationship.

Hermione started to cry. Really cry. All of the heroines in her books that she had read about and emoted with, now she finally understood. The feeling of intense regret, the feeling of a sadness so great it consumes you whole and makes mince meat out of your feelings, A feeling so empty that you could be mistaken for a coffin as your insides have been hollowed out like a pumpkin on Halloween – a seasonal fancy, neglected for the majority of the time. She understood the complete feeling of a pure and crystalline heartbreak so distilled that you're astonished your heart is even continuing to pump blood around your body, and with each pump it gives and with each rise and fall of your rib cage you are secretly resentful that heartache isn't poisonous and what would otherwise be a lethal dose is nothing more than an ailment, dismissed to the realms of teen hormones, and love songs that everyone has heard too many times, and no one even likes.

Now she knew what those words and descriptions meant, she was completely in context. Now she understood heartbreak.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a week since the incident, but Hermione felt completely transcendent, as though she were in a locked room, without windows and doors and clocks. It could have been seconds since she had walked in on them together or alternatively it could have been a century. It didn't matter to Hermione, she was Somewhere Else.

The outside world suggested clues to her cocooned state, she knew it was only a week since the incident happened on the first Saturday of half term, and she now found herself catching snippets about 'Going back on Monday' or 'Staying up all night to finish that essay' and realised the end of the week was obviously near.

Monday morning. In a blurred state that you can only ever find yourself in after a unique and extreme case of heartbreak-insomnia; Staying up until five in the morning because you can't quite get those images out of your head, be they real or just figments of your imagination created to punish yourself and make it extremely hard for you to wake up in the morning. Hermione consulted her timetable, (Which subsequently was something she had never had to do before, on the account of her memorising it before the start of autumn term) to see what lesson had tore her out of bed at this hour. It was Transfiguration and she was twenty minutes late. She slipped out of her dorm quietly and made her way swiftly to her classroom, telling anyone who gave her an inquisitive glance to keep moving with an equally powerful glare.

'Sorry I'm late Mrs McGonagal' she said, gingerly shutting the door behind her, and baring the brunt of the all too familiar stares saved for latecomers.

'Miss Granger, I can only presume you have been sleeping for the twenty minutes you ought to have been to my lesson.' She paused, giving Hermione an up-and-down glance. 'Because I can't fathom any other explanation as to why you think your pyjamas are acceptable attire for my classroom' the class stifled a giggle, and Hermione stared blankly. Everything blurred around her for a few seconds. She was sure that this was a dream; she had experienced it before she was positive. Though far from imploding with concave embarrassment, Hermione just gave Mrs McGonagal a hollow nod, and turned on the spot to leave to get changed. Hermione returned minutes later, dressed in what is correctly regarded as the Official Hogwarts uniform.

'Miss Granger, your school jumper is on backwards.' McGonagal paused, 'I suppose it is better than pyjamas. Sit down' she ushered, as another snigger rose and fell like smoke within the collective lungs of the classroom. Hermione quickly fled the lesson in the millisecond it took for the bell to ring, keen to avoid any confrontation with anyone, be it staff or student.

In potions Hermione was on time, and had since corrected her wardrobe problems avoiding any further embarrassment. She was paying so little attention that she misheard Slughorn shout out the page numbers, and spent the lesson doing a completely different potion from anyone else. Slughorn was so impressed with the potion that he passed her anyway.

She was doing a very impressive job (This is Hermione after all) of avoiding Harry, Ron and Ginny. Occasionally Harry would try to shoot her an apologetic smile or eyebrow arch, but in the rare event that Hermione was looking in that direction long enough to potentially notice, she wouldn't have been paying the slightest bit of attention, as for all intents and purposes, Hermione was very much 'Somewhere Else'.

Ginny was harder to avoid, as whether either of them liked it or not, their hearts were magnetised by each other, and Hermione would often find that she was sometimes alone in a hallway with Ginny despite having no recollection of how she got there in the first place. Ginny wanted to talk to her and insisting that just because they weren't together anymore didn't mean they were no longer friends. Hermione countered this by looking at her like she was vomiting slugs as opposed to talking, and Ginny soon sighed and walked away. Hermione couldn't hear her anyway; most dialogue was now fine tuned down to nothing but a muffled and distorted audible blur.

She spent the hours she wasn't in lessons, or avoiding her ex-friends, or wearing grossly incorrect clothing, writing letters that she knew Ginny would never read. Insisting that they both knew it wasn't really the end and that no matter what; if they were meant to be together it would happen. Hermione was certain this was the only explanation that they were made for each other and this was merely a test of faith. That she would only pass depending on how well she was handling the task at hand, and since Hermione thought she was doing terribly well she sincerely hoped that she would pass it. With all the concentration she had sectioned into this task, she had forgotten to put any of herself in an actual world, with actual people and actual concern. As Hermione walked around the castle grounds with three-skirts, two pair's jeans, and only her bra on underneath her coat, the staff of the castle were in crisis-talks of what to do with their once favourite student.

'But she was exceptional! What happened?' Professor Sinistra explained, spraying everyone with a mouthful of crumbs from Mrs Treylawney's fantastic currant buns.

'Was, exceptional, was.' Flitwick pointed out, rather astutely. 'She hasn't been able to perform a single charm in my class for over a week now, and never knows any of the answers to any questions I ask. It seems like she's turning into that Weasley boy' Flitwick stammered.

'I don't think she's in any danger of spending too much time with the Weasley _boy_' Professor Sprout added with a slight sneer.

'That's enough Pomona' McGonagal snapped with an icy glare. 'We are all perfectly aware of Miss Granger's situation with the youngest Weasley, aren't we all in no doubt that this is the reason for such a gross turn around of Miss Grangers behaviour?' McGonagal added, stirring a murmur from the staff room, and a collective nodding of heads.

'Well Minerva, if you're right, and that is the case, there's a simple enough procedure we could go through to improve things' Professor Vector interjected.

'Are you in reference to mind altercation, Septima?' Flitwick added.

'Yes, we simply magically remove any heartbreak and replace it with much softer memories. And with Potter and Ron Weasley going away, it should be easy enough to convince Ginny Weasley to say otherwise.' Professor Vector added.

'Septima!' McGonagal sighed incredulously. 'That is a highly risky and morally questionable practice, and I will not allow you to perform that task in these walls as long as I am headmistress, especially over something as trivial as the performance of our favourite pupil' McGonagal chided.

'If I may speak freely, Minerva; It's not just her performance is it? This is someone's life at stake, and not just anyone; one of the most powerful witches of our time and a valuable asset to the war efforts.' Professor Vector said, in an offhand tone, a defiant smile spreading across her face. 'She is of no use to us if she is going to show up on a battlefield with her robes on backwards, underwear on her head, whilst trying to fire spells out of a chopstick' Vector finished with a pregnant pause.

'Very well Septima, you do make a good point. I will talk it over with her tomorrow.' McGonagal confirmed. 'Good night!' She barked, and stormed out of the room to return to bed.

Hermione entered Transfiguration the next morning, dressed reasonably well (With the exception of a few errant socks clinging to her clothes and hair with static charge), but as she stepped in the door she was sidetracked by a dishevelled looking McGonagal, much to the abject horror found on Harry and Ginny's faces. They had been slowly watching Hermione turn slightly insane over the last two weeks, and they both felt equally guilty.

Hermione was led into McGonagal's office, which was both homely and terrifying, Hermione had only visited once or twice before, and that was when she had found herself in trouble.

'Now, Hermione' McGonagal commenced, with her unusually saccharine tone. Hermione noted the use of her first name, and realised that this was not just a routine check on her behaviour. 'I presume you're aware of why I've called you in here' McGonagal said, quickly rounding the desk and landing in her own chair. Hermione merely shook her head.

'Is it because of how late I was that time?' she questioned, vagueness choking her words.

'No, Hermione. This is because of your increasingly erratic behaviour! Because the Head Girl is wandering around the castle at all hours wearing more and more elaborate costumes, and behaving as though she doesn't understand a word of English!" McGonagal blurted. Hermione giggled at McGonagal's apparent rant, and smirked. 'Hermione none of this is at all funny' McGonagal said, though stifling a rare grin at the memory of Hermione attending her lesson in her pyjamas. 'Hermione, your behaviour is worrying a lot of the members of staff here. As you're probably aware, you're a very valuable pupil to this school, and a very valuable witch in the War effort. And though I am wary and sceptical, Professor Vector has suggested we perform a simple memory charm on you, erasing your bad memories of Miss Weasley, and replacing them with slightly altered, happier ones.' McGonagal said, slowly, making sure Hermione had taken it all in.

'E-e-excuse me?" She stuttered in disbelief, "W-what did you say about, Ginny?' Hermione stammered, wide-eyed.

'Oh, Hermione. You can't honestly be naïve enough to think that nobody on the faculty had noticed your behaviour towards each other? A situation starting from before you even got involved romantically, and ending now, when we have clearly found that she has some kind of romantic attachment to Harry again." McGonagal sighed, seemingly at Hermione's ignorance of the staff's collective perception, as Hermione flashed red and white like a beacon of self consciousness. 'Hermione, we're perfectly accepting here. I am merely seeing what you think of this memory altering treatment' McGonagal said, perching on her desk and putting an understanding arm on Hermione's shoulder.

'So I won't remember her whatsoever?' Hermione pondered.

'No, you will remember only the more agreeable parts of your relationship. And we will completely synthesise a more agreeable break-up for you' McGonagal smiled. 'I am sorry that this is for purely selfish reasons, however I can honestly confide in you that I was initially against it.' She paused. 'However, it is hard to see you in this state, and I have been reminded of how important you are in the War effort, and if you consider this too much to do for our side, we will be completely compliant with your wishes Hermione, and let you get on with your life however best you wish. I'm deeply sorry at how intrusive these requests are' McGonagal almost started to talk again as soon as she finished her last semi-rant, but Hermione had a deeply concentrative look on her face as she held up her hand in a gesture to stop McGonagal from talking.

'I'll do it' she said, a small smile appearing on her lips.

'Are you absolutely sure Hermione?' McGonagal said, just barely being able to keep a smile of excitement off her face.

'The end of your foreseeable life is not when you have nothing left to lose; it's when you have nothing left to gain' Hermione announced.

'That is a perfectly apt quote Hermione, may I ask where you got it from' McGonagal enquired.

'A friend' Hermione smiled. 'I'm not waiting another minute, Get rid of this sadness from me now, please' Hermione pleaded.

Within minutes Hermione had found herself strapped to a table in McGonagal's office. She couldn't see much, she strained her eyes and neck to move around and search for anything to make her feel better. She glanced it coming in the door, the shock of red hair, and the intense eyes that she had not forgotten about.

'Miss Weasley, you're not welcome here' McGonagal spat. Hermione looking visibly torn between a rock and a hard place.

'You don't have to do this Hermione! I love you ok? I'm sorry! We'll make it work! I promise, We'll be fine. Please don't do this' Ginny pleaded, striding into the room.

'Miss Granger?' McGonagal asked with just her name, and an arched eyebrow.

'Ginny, just go. It's for the best' Hermione sighed, looking very unsure of it.

'No, Hermione. It could kill you! I bet they didn't tell you that!' She started to shout. 'I've looked it up!' she begged. 'They can miss with the spell, and just erase the part of your brain that tells you how to breathe' she urged, but to no avail.

'Miss Weasley, OUT!' McGonagal shouted, louder than either of them had ever heard her shout before.

'I'm sorry I don't know what I was thinking! Please, don't do this.' Ginny pleaded with all her heart. Hermione began to cry, and tears slid down her face and into her ears and made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

'It's too late Ginny. Just go' She sighed a sigh reserved for tasks as hard as telling your lover to leave whilst you erase her.

'I'm not going to make this easy on you' she said, so quietly that if the moment had been any louder no one would have heard her. 'I have to go to Quidditch practise' she sighed and turned out of the room, closing the door with a soft thunk behind her.

'It's not as risky as Miss Weasley made it sound' McGonagal muttered with a small cough as Hermione's eyebrows arched with simultaneous worry and regret.

Ginny couldn't keep her mind on the practise; the more she tried to focus it, the more her thoughts would stray in some sort of Chinese mental finger trap.

The procedure was starting in McGonagal's office; they had strapped Hermione so tightly to the bed she could no longer move her head. She was starting to worry now; the procedure was taking too long.

'Is something wrong?' Hermione asked, straining to sit up, forgetting for a second she was bound.

'Shush please Miss Granger, don't disturb us now' McGonagal said, forcing Hermione's hot, sweaty forehead back onto the cold, hard, table.

Ginny was flying idly round in a circle, worry etched on her face and mind, not paying the slightest bit of attention to a bludger that narrowly missed her nose.

'That's what you get for shagging the captain' one of the new beaters called out. Ginny sped towards them so fast, rage oozing and breathing from every pore, that she failed to see the second bludger hit her with a sickening crack to the temple - the last thing she remembered was a bright flash, and an explosion coming from the direction of McGonagal's office.


End file.
